Is the ubermensch religious?

[Trevor]

God is dead he says, but is his ubermensch simply the reincarnation of God?

[Sauwelios]

God is dead he says, but is his ubermensch simply the reincarnation of God?

No. The Übermensch is, in a way, a God (a "vicious circle God" (Beyond Good and Evil, section 56)), but he is not moral (i.e., slave- or herd-moral). The God that Nietzsche proclaims dead is "the moral God" (The Will to Power, section 55), i.e., the God of good and evil; the Übermensch, in contrast, is beyond good and evil (though not beyond good and bad: see On the Genealogy of Morals, first treatise, section 17).

P.S.: Lampert argues that the Übermensch be not a vicious, but a virtuous circle God: by arguing that the answer to the question asked at the end of section 56 should also be "To the contrary, to the contrary, my friends!" (section 37). Note that in section 37, Nietzsche implies that the world (the will to power) is not the Devil, but rather the true God, whereas the "beyond" is not God, but rather the true Devil (who fortunately does not exist).

[Trevor]

The last sentence could have come right out of the mouth of Stirner. In fact it is Stirner whom I'm currently reading and was curious as to what the contrast was between his Egoist and N's ubermensch. I don't know N's distinction between evil and bad but either way if the ubermensch is beyond those then is he not the Devil (who fortunately does not exist)?

[Sauwelios]

The last sentence could have come right out of the mouth of Stirner. In fact it is Stirner whom I'm currently reading and was curious as to what the contrast was between his Egoist and N's ubermensch. I don't know N's distinction between evil and bad but either way if the ubermensch is beyond those then is he not the Devil (who fortunately does not exist)?

The Übermensch is not beyond good and bad, only beyond good and evil. "Good and bad" is approximately "strong and weak". So no, the Übermensch is not a Devil.

[Trevor]

Ok, so, in what way is he a God (a "vicious circle God")?

Is he (Ubermensch) something that someone is or is he something someone must become? i.e. an aspiration/an unreal-being

[Sauwelios]

Ok, so, in what way is he a God (a "vicious circle God")?

I will try to explain by the hand of two quotes, and two old posts of mine.

[The Übermensch is] the most high-spirited, alive, and world-affirming human being who has not only come to terms and learned to get along with whatever was and is, but who wants to have just what was and is repeated into all eternity, shouting insatiably da capo, not only to himself but to the whole play [Stück, literally "piece"] and spectacle, and not only to a spectacle but at bottom to him who needs [nötig hat, lit. "has need of"] precisely this spectacle — and who makes it necessary [es nötig macht, lit. "makes need of it"]: because again and again he needs himself — and makes himself necessary — — What? And this wouldn't be — circulus vitiosus deus?
[Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, section 56.]

Nietzsche emphasizes necessity by using two phrases twice: nötig hat (has necessary or needs) and nötig macht (makes necessary). This is not a physical or cosmic necessity but a lover's necessity, erotic necessity. What the lover needs as lover is the beloved, and what the beloved needs as beloved is the lover. The highest pitch of the lover's passion desires the eternal return of both beloved and lover. The lover "has precisely this spectacle as necessary — and makes it necessary." To have it as necessary is the lover's recognition of his need of the beloved. To make this spectacle necessary can hardly be to cause it or to inflate himself into thinking he caused it; rather, it must be to make the spectacle necessary as beloved, to acknowledge its indispensability, to avow, to shout, It's you, you I want and want eternally as you are. The lover's love of the beloved is itself necessitous, though not stemming from a lack: "because he always has himself as necessary — and makes himself necessary" — not as his own self-caused cause, a fundamental absurdity (15, 21) that can have no place in a logic of love. A chance consequence of everything that was and is, the lover of what was and is makes himself necessary as lover; he crowns his being by loving it, by expressing the most exuberant gratitude for it — and gratitude for it entails gratitude for the whole to which it owes its being. Affirmation of self circles into affirmation of the whole as its source, which circles into affirmation of the self: da capo to the whole piece.
[Laurence Lampert, Nietzsche's Task, page 119.]

For an interpretation that does take the necessity Nietzsche emphasises to be a cosmic necessity, an interpretation that does take the Übermensch cause, or to inflate himself into thinking he caused, the cosmic process, see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/human_superhuman/message/277 and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/human_superhuman/message/279.

Is he (Ubermensch) something that someone is or is he something someone must become? i.e. an aspiration/an unreal-being

Something that someone is: according to Lampert's, and my own "general" interpretation, he is a distinct type of human being; and according to my "special" interpretation (as expressed in those two messages I linked to), he — or rather his mind — is the only thing that exists. Still, in either case, he must "become what he is" — realise himself, so to say..